Pierre Loti

:For other meanings of "Loti", see Loti (disambiguation).

Works

At his best Pierre Loti ranks unquestionably as the finest descriptive writer of his day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colours, sounds and perfumes, he had no rival. But unsatisfied with this exterior charm, he desired to blend with it a moral sensibility of the extremest refinement, at once sensual and ethereal. Many of his best books become long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that a reader might express amazement to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what one feels.

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In spite of the beauty and melody and fragrance, of Loti's books his mannerisms tend to pall upon the reader, and his later books of pure description seemed rather empty. His greatest successes belong to the species of confession, half-way between fact and fiction, which he essayed in his earlier books.

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With all his limitations, however, Pierre Loti remains, in the mechanism of style and cadence, one of the most original and most perfect French writers of the second half of the 19th century. Among his later works were: La Troisième jeunesse de Mme Prune (The Third Youth of Mrs. Plum, 1905); Les Désenchantées (The Disenchanted, 1906); La Mort de Philae (The Death of Philae, 1908); Judith Renaudin (Théâtre Antoine, 1904), a five-act historical play based on an earlier book; and, in collaboration with Emile Vedel, a translation of King Lear, also produced at the Théâtre Antoine in 1904.

Related Topics:
19th century - La Troisième jeunesse de Mme Prune - 1905 - Les Désenchantées - 1906 - La Mort de Philae - 1908 - 1904 - Emile Vedel

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